


Small Neighborhood

by Bawgdan



Series: Alley Cat Gossip [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drabble, Drama, F/M, Ficlet, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:47:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27637723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bawgdan/pseuds/Bawgdan
Summary: Love is cool and all in theory, but in practice it's actually pretty terrifying. Ichigo has never stepped foot out of Karakura—he doesn't know how to handle a little bit a change.
Relationships: Kuchiki Rukia/Kurosaki Ichigo
Series: Alley Cat Gossip [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055135
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	Small Neighborhood

_**“What I have sought in love is a reprieve from the itch of consciousness -- to transcend myself and my human imperfections -- but this has yet to happen.”~ Melissa Broder** _

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Like most modern romances, it starts with a DM on Instagram. Karakura Town has a distinct wage gap. In the middle there's the honest working folks. The elite on the east. The dregs on the west. Ichigo Kurosaki (gh0stbby666) shows up on Rukia Kuchiki's discover page (hunni_bunni). She'd never seen him around town, granted she doesn't get out much—she doesn't go past the interstate that melts into the middle of Karakura. Not because she finds the innards of their community odd. She just feels disconnected from everything. 

The rows of fat houses, the kids she has grown up with, the culture at her private school, the standards of being a Kuchiki. Rukia's resistance, her isolation, over the years disfigured itself into rage. And her rage has blossomed into something sexual.

She stops the glide of her skateboard, almost tripping into the concrete when Ichigo's face stretches across her screen. Her soul eats a ten second clip of him playing a guitar. He's shirtless with a gold chain slithering around his throat. He's prettier than Byakuya (of course he is) in a crudely primitive way. She imagines what his sun baked skin smells like, she can taste his breakfast in her mouth, what flavor energy drink he must like. Rukia decides that he is hot, unlike all the men in her sterile world of privilege. 

She's aware that her thirst starts incredibly fictive, but Rukia is known for her imagination. It's the only thing she is really proud of.

Rukia sends him a wink face emoji.

Ichigo replies with a pair of eyes not even a minute later.

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Their flirting turns into exchanging numbers, which transitions them into FaceTiming. They talk about art. Ichigo likes music and poetry. Rukia likes to paint. Whether they're both really all that good at their hobbies isn't worth debating. Rukia likes the sound of Ichigo's voice. He doesn't speak pretentiously. Neither does he make himself out as someone smart or worth listening to like the rest of the men in her life. In return, Ichigo loves her sketches. 

"You leave your personality all over..." He comments. His voice dwindles as he squints into the camera at charcoal shapes in her sketchbook.

"I have to smear myself all over my drawings."

"Smear yourself?" He laughs. The spread of his lips into a smile makes her blush, but he can't properly see her face. He's got a good view of her knees and the sketchbook in her lap.

"Yes. It's the only way people can see me." She chews on her bottom lip until it bleeds.

"Smear." His love for words makes her guts feel like hot melted candy.

"Yes. I smear."

"Oddly specific, but I know exactly what you mean. I see you, Rukia." 

"I see you too, hottie mchottie pants." Her giggle is perfectly ugly.

They stare into their phones at each other. A natural pause in conversation occurs between them. Rukia wants him so badly to see her naked and smear his mouth all over her pussy. 

_I want you to breathe your magic words into my womb._

Now, she can only think in stanzas. Especially when it comes to Ichigo Kurosaki. 

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Their first date is at this breakfast place that Ichigo swears by. Rukia surprises herself by not getting lost, having little to no direction beyond the east side of Karakura. She rode the bus for the first time—the experience validated her hunch of greater insignificance. Rukia became a simple pedestrian for the first time. Nameless. When she asked for directions, people didn't respond to the Kuchiki part of herself. They were responding to the version of herself without the complicated family tree and trust fund. 

_Pedigree is how you classify a species, like a dog. We use punnett squares to measure our identities. As though money is a formula in our blood cells. The only right we have at birth is a right to happiness._

Ichigo is sexier in person. He's the type of guy who buys his shirts a size too little and they shrink in the wash. Rukia sucks in her bottom lip at the sight of his subtle happy trail. He is less intimidating trapped in her phone screen. Pore-less. Unreal. Like she'd dreamed him up.

Rukia rubs her knees together when he slides into the booth. The logo on his shirt stretches across his chest. The sleeves bunch under his armpits. She thinks about him putting her in a choke hold and squeezing her soul from her body. There's scars on his arm. He's even got a light farmer's tan.

"You're a lot smaller in person." He speaks first. They've spent so much time talking on the phone, Rukia doesn't know what she feels shy about. Ichigo already knows her favorite color, that she likes Pepsi over Coke, and panties over thongs. 

"Correction. I'm fun sized." Rukia's thighs stick to the fake leather seats. Ichigo could be a model. _Or I'm just sexually frustrated._

"Can you even open pickle jars by yourself?" He reaches over the table to cup her tiny hands inside of his large left hand. "You have baby fingers."

"Of course I can't. That's what himbos are for." She replies primly. 

"Himbos?" Ichigo flattens her palm in his hand, really getting amusement out of her smallness. 

"A big dumb man with muscles." Rukia says this matter-of-factly. She rolls her shoulders, straightening her spine. The straps of her sundress roll down her shoulders.

"That's your type? Big dummies?" He hasn't stopped smiling. They make solid eye contact. 

"Maybe. Are you a big dumb dumb?" She holds onto his long index finger. There's nothing dumb about Ichigo. Idiots don't say self aware things like _'I'm a junky for affirmation'._

"If that will make you like me more, then yes. My brain is smooth." 

"Ichigo. I don't think it's possible to like you more than I do now." She looks down at their hands when she admits this.

The conversation stalls. Ichigo squeezes her hand. The waitress arrives and they both order waffles and bacon. Rukia asks for crayons so that she can color on the children's menu.

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They talk about their dreams. Not the future. Things like how Rukia wishes she could be a houseplant. Ichigo wishes he could time travel. Their dreamy wants reveal a lot about themselves without actually having to address Rukia going off to college. She never mentions it. 

And he never mentions that he has no plans. Everyone in Karakura knows about the Kuchikis. They don't breed failures. He doesn't have anything to offer her but his sense of humor.

"I just want to lay on the beach with my dick out for the rest of my life." He murmurs into the phone.

"Oooh. That sounds better than being a house plant."

Later he sent her a picture of said dick. Rukia masturbated herself into a blissful state of fullness. 

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Ichigo didn't know what Cartier was until Rukia. He watches her dig her spoon inside a cup of bubble gum flavor ice cream. Her fuzzy red keychain jingles from her cream colored Louis Vuitton backpack. She taught him how to pronounce Louis Vuitton. Her silver Cartier bracelet slides down her arm when she points the spoon at him. These nice expensive things don't seem to fit her. He can't place why exactly—they just feel like things she has because she doesn't know better (they're just as unimpressive to her as they are him).

They're riding the escalator at the mall. 

"I think it's kinda crazy..." She speaks with a mouthful of ice cream.

"What?" Ichigo stares at her studded hoop earrings hanging from her tiny ears. Her hair is pulled back in two low buns.

"It's really crazy that we have lived in the same place all of our lives but are just now crossing paths." It made her world so much smaller. How little does she actually know? What _don't_ they teach you in private school?

"Karakura is big—" Ichigo starts to say.

"Not as big as New York or Paris." She doesn't mean to cut him off. They step off the escalator.

"I've never been to either of those places so I wouldn't know." He is insecure about how much he doesn't know. Rukia is unlike the girls he grew up with. She hands him the rest of her ice cream along with the spoon she's been sucking on.

"Can I ask you something dumb?" Ichigo makes a point not to walk too fast. 

"I love dumb questions." The secret is she really isn't as smart as Byakuya. Smart is a talent of his. Rukia has to put in the extra work to be excellent. Her excellence is a honed skill.

"Why me?" He scoops into the ice cream, not looking at her when he asks this. There's no shortage of dumb rich hot guys. Why settle for a dumb poor one with no aspirations?

Rukia snakes her thin arms around his waist, pressing her face into his hard chest, sinking her nose into the smell of his laundry detergent.

"Why not you?" Rukia can't give a substantial reason for why that isn't shallow.

Ichigo rests the cup on her head and shoves a huge glob of ice cream into his mouth. The plastic spoon clicks against his teeth.

"I really don't know—I shouldn't talk bad about myself." He gets a bad case of brain freeze.

"Ichigo, there's nothing bad about you."

"You have a biased opinion."

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Ichigo suggested that they do something disrespectful. _A victimless crime._ Rukia grabbed an armful of clothes off the racks and shoved them in his arms. She whips out her phone, pressing record as she zooms in on his already, very guilty, face.

"Fuck me in public." She grins at him. 

"A crime of passion?" He walks toward the dressing room.

"Is that how I make you feel?" Rukia keeps the camera up to his face.

"Horny? Yes." 

The dressing room is an unattended wasteland of clothes. She follows him behind the last curtain. Ichigo drops the clothes at her feet and starts to take off his shirt. 

"Say something stupidly horny." She records her hand stroking his chest. Ichigo runs his tongue along the inside of his cheek. He has a fixed stare on her face. The language is there but his tongue just curls up in his mouth. He evaluates his worth—for someone who loves to weaponize his words for good, he isn't that deep of a person. He makes poignant observations about his environment is all. His palette is infantile. If you've never been to Paris or New York, can you really call yourself an artist? 

Rukia stops recording when his expression goes stiff. She slinks the backpack off her pointy shoulders. It drops into the mound of clothes. Ichigo sits on the bench, brushing aside plastic hangers.

"I'm sorry." _What is his mouth even good for_ he wonders to himself. His chest expands and deflates.

"For what?" She frowns.

"Being nervous. I don't think I'm going to live up to your expectations." Ichigo rubs the back of his neck. Rukia doesn't know what expectations he is talking about, which he suspects might become a problem later. 

"I didn't realize I made you so anxious." She swallows.

They exist in this small space for a long time. A sales associate rattles the racks but doesn't hang around very long. _How many people have tried to fuck behind this very curtain. How many succeeded?_

Rukia unbuttons her shorts with a loud snap. Ichigo eyes her naked pelvis. It doesn't shock him that she's hairless between her legs. She pulls her tube top under her breasts then straddles him.

"You don't take me seriously." Rukia inhales his top lip. He twitches at first, because he hasn't been ready for any of this. Rukia came out of thin air.

"I do take you seriously." He kisses her back. She unbuttons his pants. The cold air against his penis sends a laborious wave of relaxation through his muscle. His self-esteem dissolves into sexual desire. 

"I don't believe you." She looks him straight in the eyes.

"I wanna eat you—like I wanna suck your skin clean off the bone." Only if she lets him, which he is pretty sure she will. Or the reverse. Maybe she will eat him whole first.

"That's stupidly horny." 

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Ichigo is very good at doing nothing. The creative shit is just how he utilizes his uselessness. He isn't very good at math so he couldn't be an accountant. He hates telling people what to do and that would make him a very shitty teacher. Authority most definitely isn't his vibe. In his opinion, Rukia is the most interesting thing about him that has happened to him. And he's done a lot of weird drugs that makes him see things.

When Rukia isn't sweetening up his life, he burns hours with Uryuu and Keigo, high as a kite. _Higher than giraffe pussy_ —as Keigo would say. Keigo is funny in a deep meaningful way. It's always accidental and when they least expect him to be.

Uryuu drives them around in his dad's nice car. Ichigo is in the back seat without a seat belt. Keigo is supposed to be rolling through his playlist on his phone. Uryuu and Ichigo hate his taste in music. It's either 80s music that only their dad's listen to or somber 90s shit like Mazzy Star. 

"Orihime is so hot." Keigo sort of whines this out.

"What happened to the music?" Uryuu stops at every yellow light.

Keigo holds up the phone to Uryuu's face. Orihime is holding her phone up in a mirror with heart emojis over her nipples. Her post-shower hair trickles down one side of her face. Uryuu scrunches up his nose.

"Ichigo—why not?" Keigo then attempts to hand his phone to Ichigo who politely declines with a wave of his hand. "Man, you need your head checked..."

"Some of us don't like to participate in the objectification of women." Uryuu answers for Ichigo. This is partly true. Ichigo **isn't** a horny glutton, but he also cannot, for the life of him, make up feelings nor rationalize a reason to involve himself with Orihime. He has tried, it hasn't worked. The sizzle is just nonexistent. Also, Ichigo is just physically incapable of detached sex. 

"I respect women and I appreciate the resources they provide for us via the internet. She wants you to see her belly button. She has a very nice belly button by the way." Keigo zooms in with this thumb and index finger, squinting with one eye closed.

Sucking down on his milkshake, Ichigo is too busy thinking about Rukia's mouth around his penis and the jerk and pull of her fingers. 

"I guess," is Ichigo's very weak reply. The milkshake cools down the pulse of heat in his stomach. Uryuu glances at him over his glasses in the rearview mirror.

"You snooze, you lose." Keigo taps the heart under Orihime's picture.

"What am I losing?" Ichigo chews on his straw. Uryuu laughs at both of them.

One day, he might tell them about Rukia. When he's used to the spontaneous idea of forever. It's too soon, but he goes there sometimes. 

Love hits him hard across the face. So hard, his face is stuck in a grimace. All Ichigo thinks about is Rukia. He imagines her in a queen size bed in a room the size of the bottom floor of his house, touching herself all the time to the sound of his voice.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Really, 2020 has been a wild ass year. I never in my life considered writing IchigoxRukia. Like wow what even is this? Trash? idek. Maybe I will continue it if people like it enough. Thanks for reading.


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